


Treating Sapphire

by teasmudge



Category: Kuroshitsuji | Black Butler
Genre: Adult Ciel Phantomhive, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Drama & Romance, Explicit Sexual Content, F/F, F/M, Graphic Description, M/M, Mental Disintegration, Multi, Patient! Ciel, Philosophy, Psychopathology & Sociopathy, SebaCiel - Freeform, Therapist! Sebastian, Trauma
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-03-08
Updated: 2019-06-18
Packaged: 2019-11-13 16:58:14
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 6,549
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18035543
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/teasmudge/pseuds/teasmudge
Summary: He is both saviour and executioner.Creation reaps destruction: perhaps lust and agony breathe the same air.





	1. Prologue: Dulce de Leche

**Author's Note:**

> Hello. Welcome to my rollercoaster. Here, I attempt to spew the bullshit that floats inside of my mind on to these pages. 
> 
> Note:Translations to any non-english words used will always be keyed at the end of the chapter.
> 
> Dedicated to, and written for my Sebastian.

Sebastian, _epifania._

 

Memories are excerpts. Idiosyncratic extracts of human experience. They are intrinsically magnificent, pinpointed happenstances in which the brain sets aside the present to touch hands with the past. It is romantic, even. How the subconscious exerts itself in order to recite the poem of one’s life. Register, store, receive: the mind’s soliloquy.

 

Moments do not live inside of our hearts. No, they reside somewhere much deeper, in the depths of a place that is _truly_ and unspeakably human. Inside of the head is where the waters flood black, and the self drowns.

 

Amidst the spring of my life, when boys my age were skidding their wobbly knees on pavement and stretching to reach for the cookie jar, I learnt that the only important part of Ibsen’s three-act-play _A Doll’s House_ is the line _“nearly all criminals have had lying mothers.”_

 

_Mother_ never told any lies, her backbone was much too slinky to coagulate them, but she tried.

 

I think about _Mother_ often, perhaps more often than I’d like, though my mind is no wanderer. It is a predator in wait, and she hunts me. Encases my memories in her spidery trap and spins all of my thoughts into organized webs of precise calculations. I’ll admit that I reflect in the same way that I feast, ardently. And this memory was no different. Nostalgia enfeebled my brain like an old photograph, but unlike the decay of flimsy pellicle, this recollection never withered:

 

Sorrento is a lovely hillside town in Naples that juts out from the bosom of Italy to overlook the Tyrrhenian Sea. My family owns a boisterously large estate there, littered with old trees, and a vineyard, and a horse stable. During the bouts of my maudlin juvenility, it was where we’d spend a small portion of our summer; when _Father_ took time off to cleanse his palette with the taste of _Mother’s_ saliferous skin, balsamed by the breeze of salted water.

 

It was a perfect daydream, really. A laundry string of songbirds sang a duet with the morning light in a harmony much too bright for breakfast on the veranda.

 

The day had a certain feel to it, just as anything else did. Like European detergent and the plink of water from an overused tap.

 

I remember what it smelt like: lemongrass, and bread, and a putrid sort of misery that stunk away the early morning fog.

 

The maid’s name was Bettina, and by the time that I sat down at the table, she had already prepared a hearty _colazione_ for our family of five. The buffet was round and full, but in the lucidity of my pubescence, _Father_ seemed to sit at the head of it nonetheless. A vase of flowers wilted beautifully at its centre, and if I perched just right, their petals would shroud my _Father’s_ face with ambrosia.

 

I didn’t need to look at him to know that he was moistening the rim of his coffee cup with the venom of his lips. The rattle of his fingernails clinked against porcelain in clayed unison, and the sudden slither of his voice stirred the _schiuma_ inside of his coffee, like winding threads of silk from skeins on to bobbins.

 

_“Good morning.”_

 

It wasn’t a greeting and it certainly wasn’t a good morning. It was permission for the rest of us to breathe in the aura of his dominion. As if it wasn’t enough, his unoccupied hand reached up to appraise the plush of _Mother’s_ rosy cheeks, and he smirked a smirk that said _that’s right, stay put._

 

Proper etiquette is high society’s blushing bride, and not unlike a thraldom, her mellowed innocence remains veiled behind thin sheets of laced virulence and silkened oppression.

 

From next to me, my little sister spread marmalade over a crumby chunk of brioche obnoxiously, and the instance evaporated; suddenly lost amongst the clank of silverware and the bile that festered in the prison of our throats. She was sloppy about it, disgustingly so, as if its pulpy syrup would make the toast go down easier. Silly little girl, did she not know that sugar couldn’t repair shattered glass?

 

Our family was a painting of people we would never be, a field of gold that bounced sunshiny pollen from the sheen of our teeth to the glistened pitcher of pressed orange juice.

 

I looked down at the boiled egg placed before me and inspected the way that it rested comfortably in its ceramic skelter. Then, I gazed back up at _Mother_ with camomile eyes. She grinned and obliged herself to wear the sting of _Father’s_ palm like blusher. His touch was a magnet, capable of tugging at the stretchy strings of her facial muscles to the tune of his whims. It was a sunny, Duchenne smile, strangely faded by the ardour of my childhood and the slow-turning sunlight.

 

Why did she smile like _that?_ A concentrate of anger burbled behind the flesh of my nape and crawled up the back of my skull in prickles of magma. It circled around the top of my head in a halo of fire that crowned me _The King of Cowards._ Then it fell from in between the crease of my eyebrows and clung to the ochre of my eyes until all I saw was _red._

 

I found myself wanting to crack her open like an egg with a spoon. To sift through the scoria of her insides and find that thing in which kept her smiling, and electrocute it.

 

It was in that brief delusion of a moment, right after my father exhaled flames from his nostrils, and just before the spine of my mother’s smile bowed even further to extinguish them, that I realized: I desired to break people.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Translation:  
> epifania: epiphany  
> colazione: breakfast  
> schiuma: cream
> 
> Thank you to @fallenseraphciel, @secretly-a-wuss, and @cielpansyhive for their support.
> 
> talk to me on tumblr @teasmudge


	2. Saccharified

  
By: [Sebastian Art](sebastian--art.tumblr.com)

Afternoons suited Sebastian well. He sat in his usual booth, arm stretched atop the curve of tufted swede in nonchalant audacity as he choked a piece of ice around a glass of red scotch.

 

The sac of blonde across from him garbled querulously about something nonsensical.

 

Sebastian remained silent and let the clank of his glass carry on their conversation, for he didn’t speak when it was not needed. 

 

Baldroy understood Sebastian well enough; stupid people weren’t incapable, after all.

 

It had taken Sebastian exactly one year to connive Baldroy to divorce his successful yet repulsive wife. The man had been visiting Sebastian to treat his upscaled boredom, and soon enough, their sessions overgrew their curfew and Baldroy became an acquired taste.

 

Sebastian couldn’t take all of the credit. The burly dolt signed his own name on the deed to the club, and just like that, Sebastian had obtained an untraceable, albeit legally unmentionable tie to the most prominent lounge on the upper east side. He kept Baldroy around, in the same way that one would keep a tacky keychain, as a souvenir. 

 

Sebastian looked at him disinterestedly when the man stood up and offered some half-assed excuse to go to the restroom and powder his nose full of cocaine. 

 

Just in time for the evening rush. 

 

He uncrossed his legs and then crossed them once more, a doctor’s habit. There was a pen in his hand when he unfolded the napkin that came with his drink. The corner of his candlelit eyes left a slime trail of sagacity across the expanse of the lounge and all of its unknown inhabitants. Simple people, cleaning, and arranging, and prepping for the night’s show. It was as loud as any sedulous room filled with couches and bottles of liquor should be.

 

He inured his mind by giving himself exactly sixteen seconds to appraise a complete stranger, and he’d time it too. Countdown the moment until each person drained to zero. He did this with calculated gusto, in the same way that a chef sharpens his knives. A different place every time, so that the mind does not accustom: a train station, a park bench, a coffee shop. Or as today would have it, Baldroy’s burlesque club. As far as he was concerned, this was an afternoon well spent, like newspaper sudoku.

 

At the bar, a group of waiters filled their empty pockets with smiles. All of them, clear-faced and eager. A particular hunch of shoulder, Sebastian observed from opposite the glass partition, sagged like sand whenever the conversation floated away from him. The man’s nervousness coerced his eyelids to blink obnoxiously. How banal. Anxiety disorders were much too common among young adults. 

 

People watching. That’s what everybody called it. But Sebastian thought himself different. He had varicoloured degrees, which made him uniquely attentive, and a ferocity that matched the colour behind the varnish of his stare. In between the awareness and carelessness of every individual lived a moment, a flicker. Shorter than a breath, and longer than the sky. It was within this moment that Sebastian enjoyed imbuing his parasite, and allowing the mind to wander. He considered people as instances, junctures of intricately feeble matter. Most people were unworthy of his time. But there were these twinkles, he noted, that every person had. A flash of inhuman. Sebastian deemed it to be the perfect breeding ground for the bacterium of his malice.

 

Near the entryway was a glimpse of a woman. Her reddened, sticky mouth made his cock hard. Undistinguishable eyes with cappuccino skin—

 

Just then, a figure emerged from one of the doors and zigzagged across the room like a stain of dark grey. Sebastian didn’t appreciate the stranger’s coat, although that mattered little. The stranger had served his purpose adequately enough, passed by Sebastian’s booth in a gust of wrinkled polyester and presented an envelope to the edge of the table. Their eyes did not meet when Sebastian welcomed the thin parcel to the home within his breast pocket. Altogether, the encounter lasted no longer than a minute. 

 

By the time Baldroy had returned to the table, all that was left of Sebastian was melted ice and a perfectly folded napkin. When he read its contents, his face blanched. Then he snorted back a laugh and crumbled the dirtied napkin into Sebastian’s secondhand glass of scotch. The paper disintegrated instantly, just before the ink bled the liquid in swarth. 

Manhattan was a small island. At the same time, a black town car scared away a bird perched on a nearby stop sign, and its backseat passenger blinked the sun away from his eyes.

 

It turned out that Ciel needn’t ever fret about Alois’ whereabouts, this much was true, seeing as there was already a column of consecutive texts perturbing his phone’s lock screen, not even twelve hours since their last rendezvous. 

 

His sunglasses did little to filter out the warmth of daylight, and the bud of a migraine introduced itself to the underside of his earlobe when he habitually perched them atop his teeming head of hair. 

 

Begrudgingly, Ciel reached for the device and huffed passed a smile as it clicked open.

 

“And I was just so annoyed-” Rihanna fuzzed distantly about the only girl in the world. “My fingers got wet, obviously. And then my touch ID was just like: wait do I know you?” Said Lo’s afternoon voice memo.

 

Ciel was swiping languidly at the screen, looking for an octopus to pair with his signature peach emoji, when the car came to a stop and the front seat driver raised her hand above the brake with a sigh.

 

Meyrin spoke English thickly, carved through her words as if she were serrating a block of obsidian. 

 

“Ehm, sir. We’re here. All of them smuks are already there,” she gestured with her chin as she spoke, “hands up their asses, ‘aiting for you.”

 

Ciel hired her as his bodyguard because he absolutely adored Gloria Steinem and Meyrin happened to be Jewish. Her hips filled out the fabric of her stockings well, even had enough room to keep a couple pistols, one for each thigh, a trick that she learned from her training in the Mossad. She had the eyes of a hawk, the instincts of a spider, and the voracity of a woman. 

 

Plus she was a redhead, and Ciel liked crazy.

 

The rearview mirror watched as Ciel flirted with the compact blusher that he kept within the pouch of his travel purse, before taking its plumy applicator and dusting it over the tip of his nose. Perfectly pink. Then, he stiffened the dials of his spine in the same way that one would an easel and lifted his chin toward the entrance of the restaurant. The doors were held open by a triangular attendant, inviting the air inside as if the place hadn’t been booked out for the afternoon. And suddenly, Ciel had to scrunch his nose because the air smelled bad.

 

Meyrin was accustomed to the pace, and only made to open the backseat door when she was sure that he’d squeezed enough of the air inside of his lungs to spew fire.

 

Ciel stepped out of the car like a sweetheart. The cameras were watching much more intensely, seeing as this was the first time he’d be seen in New York since April. One leg at a time, as if the touch of his studded slip-ons were capable of turning the sewered street to cloud. 

 

When the waiter introduced Ciel to the table, everyone stood. Not because they wanted to, he was just a boy. They had to, for he was not only the sole heir to one of the largest real estate companies in the western hemisphere, but a boy whose pretty blue eyes were worth over three billion dollars. Such privilege had entitled him some respect.

 

Ciel sat down and ordered a tower of sweets. He had insisted that their meeting be held at this particular cafe because he liked their croquembouche best. Ciel wasn’t a typical boy, which is why this wasn’t a typical chairman’s meeting. 

 

“Shall we start, gentleman? I assume you are all very disturbed with my absence during the last six months.” He spoke cheerily and shared a curious look with the eldest of the bunch, or as Ciel liked to call him: Mister T. 

 

“Mr Phantomhive,” Began Tanaka, “it is highly unusual, and dare I say it, very irresponsible of you to vanish so suddenly, with no word during the term… A complete disregard to your obligations, especially so close to the date of your official inheritance this winter.”

 

The board of directors took turns exchanging pointy nods of agreement. 

 

Inwardly, Ciel smirked. He thought it perfect. Outwardly, he played his part well. Took a drizzle of aurously slicked caramel on the tip of his pointer finger even though there was a perfectly acceptable fork just there, and brought it between the part of his lips. 

 

Ciel’s kitten licks ensued a new exchange amongst their committee of stuffy old men, one of creased cotton and wrinkled foreheads. 

 

“Right as always, Tanaka.” His mouth moved with a sugary sort of thoughtfulness. 

 

“I must apologize for my behaviour and my untimely absence, gentlemen.” For emphasis, Ciel fiddled with the massive rock of sapphire that hung from stringed silver down the curve of his exposed collar bone. 

 

“You must all forgive me, a boy such as I can only handle so much emotion. I’m afraid it was the immaturity of my sadness that led me away from my duties.” When he traced his hand along the edges of his shoulder, all eyes followed the movement, unsure of silk from skin. 

 

His expression was expert. He didn’t smile. What he did was far different, for he carried his teeth in his mouth like a body bag. Even wrote about it in his journal: imprisoned porcelain inside of a glass cage. It was still charming, the way that he forced the corner of his eyes to crinkle so delicately.

 

The table twirled within the torrents of his blue anguish. One thing was certain, Ciel’s sadness held people captive. 

 

“We are all very humbled to have worked alongside your father, bless his soul.” This came from a new voice.

 

“Luckily, thank the logistics of your inheritance, we needn’t chase your signature all the way down the Seine. Come new year and we won’t be able to protect you anymore,” The man’s breath slithered passed the sheen of his words maliciously. “By then, the company will be yours, my dear boy.”

 

_ Protect? _

 

The air became hard to swallow. Ciel wasn’t prepared to hear him talk yet. This time, the young man spoke with meaning:

 

“It’s been very difficult lately,” he brought his palm to his chest and tried to breathe. “Once again, I’ll have to call upon your patience. Auntie thought that I needed a break, and because of the tremors, she implored me to return to therapy.” Bullshit. It was all bullshit and Ciel could taste it in his mouth, swishing with the saliva on the belly of his tongue. 

 

“I’ve returned home for this reason. To get better. To be as strong as I am able… It’s how daddy would have wanted it.” Ciel’s eyes overflowed with lies. They fell from the fog behind his tear duct in the form of runny lustre.

 

The table and its men paled. Ciel purposely looked sideways at the ground as they did this. Like a wounded bird, too scared to ruffle its feathers. The gesture was perfectly emasculate, and much too abrasive to save face. From the plush of his lap, his fists squeezed in triumph, and if they could speak, they would shout: yes, that’s right. Pity me.

 

“Funtom owes each of you thanks. For embracing the company with very capable hands.” His teeth proved to be incendiary as they clacked inside the cages of his jaw. “I ask that you all continue advising me so gracefully, just as you did for my father.” 

 

Ciel thought it well said. Adequately polite, and positively groomable. His charms and naivety would tie the perfect bow atop the midnight tissued gift that was his birthright.

That evening, when he laid his head to rest, it was tingles of ill intent, of which prickled beneath the softness of his skin, that soothed his mind to sleep.

 

He thought of the board of directors and their leather buckled hands. They considered Ciel to be a pretty boy, something lovely to look at. But they, along with the rest of the world, questioned his diligence to run an empire. Each of them chewed on a different slice of the same cake, but everyone knew that any worthwhile Phantomhive was dead. Which is why Funtom’s board of directors were so inconspicuously exasperated. Until his twenty-first birthday, Ciel would have to be smart. And for someone as beautiful as he, that meant being stupid. 

 

The next morning, the rapacity within him awoke too. Its skeleton wore the flesh of delicately pressed malice, adorned by a mammoth lavalliere of venom coated sapphire.

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A massive, ear to ear thanks to @Chromehoplite for her beta.
> 
> (Thank you Rose, you incredible human being).
> 
> kudos and comments are the writer equivalent of x's and o's. 
> 
> come talk to me on tumblr @teasmudge.


	3. Session One

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for beta reading my shit[Chrome.](https://girl-star-bastard.tumblr.com/) It wouldn't work without you, without all of the stardust that you tinkle on my awkwardness. 
> 
> **Thank you [Rose](https://scarlet-la-rose.tumblr.com) for your coding, you're spectacular.
> 
> Thank you for getting me through it Pooh, for making me giggle all fast, like vmvmvmvmvmvm.
> 
> Thank you[Sebastian,](https://sebastian--art.tumblr.com/)for the endless night. And for the cover of my dreams.
> 
> We all already knew that I was this motherfucking sappy, didn't we? So I'm just going to go for a banger here, wait a sec.. I'm so stupidly cliche, forgive me, but where else am I supposed to say this?
> 
> Thank you so fucking much to everyone who has indulged me in this fic. I'm such a virgin to all of this, and every single comment, or message, or anything at all really has lit me up from the inside out. Now, thanks to you, I walk around all rosy and blushy and obnoxious as shit. Yes this is a diary entry and I will go on..Posting this chapter especially means a lot to me, since it has served aptly as a symbolic end to some hectic shit that has been going on. No moment lasts as long as the joy that I feel when I write these absolute idiots having weird conversation with one another.

  
By: [Sebastian Art](sebastian--art.tumblr.com)

Park Avenue was a short cab ride to Fifth Avenue; not that Sebastian rode taxi anyway. The wind seemed slightly rushed that morning, but New York stayed smiling and had cracked a full-blown grin by the time that Sebastian stepped inside _Cartier._

 

Paula, the chestnut haired sales associate, was sprightly and adequately personable, which is why, instead of the other way around, he considered her to be  _ his  _ regular. 

 

The Oak Room of  _ Maison Cartier _ looked just as it sounded, ornately provencal and crisp. Wherever, through a beige curtained hallway lived a similar room, except this one was softer and much quieter.

 

A second, less important associate interrupted their routine by offering Sebastian his favourite: ginger combed black tea. He left quickly, a private room was only private in the absence of a crowd. Meanwhile, Paula unclasped a gold trimmed encasing of variously assorted ballpoint pens. Sebastian chose a new one for each of his priority patients, as was tradition, which was why Paula needed little direction.

 

For Sebastian, it was a rather enjoyable and serious occasion. Each pen was to be different because every patient was equally as different. If this much were true, he would have to choose wisely.

 

With earnest, he thought back to the memorized file tucked into the middle drawer of his desk before raising the arch of his eyebrows to glance over each of the utensils in front of him.

 

Clunky steel, absolutely not.

 

Too bland. Even for an emotionally devastated, fair-skinned rich boy. Nay, patient six demanded something kingly, something wayward.

 

A flawless lacquer wouldn’t match either.

 

The brushed gold did adhere some appeal, and although it sufficed, it lacked any adequate parallel; Sebastian refused it rather blatantly.

 

“These won’t do. Are there others?”

 

Paula assured him that there were, and once she returned with a second case, one of them caught hold of the dewdrops inside of his eyes. She sighed in response, a little jealous, but extremely relieved: a commission on a pen that price would pay for a million textbooks.

 

He took it in his hand and weighed it between his fingers in the same way that a seasoned smoker would embrace the bud of a long cigarette. 

 

When he shook it, not even that hard, he liked the way its insides clicked. Liked it so much that he uncrossed his legs for  _ comfort _ .

 

Paula recognized the look on his face, a buyer’s expression, and even though she knew that Sebastian was too smart to fall for her petulant charm, she still tried her best:

 

“That one there is a part of our roadster collection. It offers a perfectly proportioned shaft, and cap, and…” Paula jingled, “It has a seven hundred n’ fifty gold flexible nib. Unique, isn’t it?”

 

Unique was not the word he’d use, though that was not to say that he would disagree, either. Paula was behaving much too boorishly today. The reason for this observation had a likely answer, but his mind stabbed itself--

 

_ Insignificant panic, pack it away. _

 

What was most probable: today he felt like a defensive man. 

 

Sebastian nodded politely, but his smile, of which he purposefully splattered upon the square of his face, told her that she was an awful actress. His distaste seeped inside of her so devastatingly that he was sure she would wear that sad look all day. She even said something about it, perfectly pathetic.

 

“Surely not,” the man became conscious of passing time, “you know that I wouldn’t be able to choose without your help.” He spoke to Paula in the same way that he’d speak to his niece about violin lessons. Paula, ever the modern woman, understood his impatience very well.

 

The pen was purchased no longer than thirteen minutes after, just in time for the rim of Sebastian’s sheen coated blazer to catch on the sun, gleaming its coattails above traffic’s grumbly digestion of lunchtime.

 

Sebastian’s private office had many books and a decent amount of mahogany; every Oxford Professor’s dream. His shelf was supplied with first editions of exactly what you’d expect. Classics and various encyclopedia. He had Hume, and Sartre, and the Bible, which were not for personal use, no never, he used them to entertain his patients. There was something horrifically gothic about it too, nowhere specific, which only made it worse and not entirely pleasant. Forest green lampshades and browny black ottomans, a metaphorical restricted section. It really was the perfect place to sneak away to. 

 

As usual, the air greeted Sebastian warmly whenever he let himself in, like lipstick stained remnants of a Cuban cigar. 

 

Everything had a place, especially his workspace, which he sat on during most consultations. It was more of a stage than anything else, and very overdone, but the only person who thought so was himself, he made perfectly sure of it.

 

The furniture was odd, large tufts of well-acquainted leather sliding down valleys of moneyed sturdiness. His armchair had a ridiculously large back; all held together by the dips that made up the chair’s armrests, tacked with rows of circularly polished metal. The cushions were not comfortable, they were richly burgundy and aptly intimidating. 

 

When Sebastian sat down, it dared not crease. 

 

A glossy side table nestled beside him. Its wood fussed from the ground in four separate strands of intricately carved slithers, and at the top, they joined hands to cradle a smooth block of stained bark. The table was small, but it was the most important piece of furniture inside the room, for it held his greatest conquest: a leather-bound journal. The notebook itself, if he was honest, held little significance; the parchment that filled it was bountiful and easily stored. What mattered were its auspicious contents: his written mind. 

 

This was why the writing instrument was important, too. Wherever Sebastian was concerned, a pen was a therapist’s murder weapon, and from within the main compartment of his briefcase, a rectangularly red box sung a song of catastrophe. It felt underweight in his hands, and fragile, like a packaged bomb.

 

The inside of the case was lined with rich satin. Sebastian could feel it under his fingernails as he plucked the pen from its cushion. The object itself was made of dense metal and black tinted calf-skin, the sort that remained cold upon touch no matter the instance.  

 

It was more dagger than it was pen. Sharp and fast, like an  _ arrow _ . 

 

What made it doppelgänger its patient, as far as assumptions were concerned, was the prominent nub of blue resin cabochon that stuck out of the tip. 

 

_ The shapely polish of a paragon, beautiful. But a wolf was still a wolf, even donned by sapphire. _

 

Oh yes, and it twisted open.

 

He set it down on the table in an almost correct manner and glazed his eyes over it languidly. Then he slightly urged it forward and—

 

Two sets of three knocks later and Sebastian was standing up to greet the door.

 

Agni walked into his office, and from behind him, towed a bouncy head of giggles:  _ patient six. _ Seeing as they had unironically bumped into one another in the hallway, Sebastian’s kind-eyed coworker had conveniently offered to walk him to his rightful Doctor's door. How congenial of him to go out of his way to do such a thing. The pair were fond, Sebastian assumed that Agni must have told the boy a warm joke to ensure such an airy atmosphere.

 

Agni’s methods were cautiously amicable, they held a briny sort of citrus, the kind that freshened rotten fish. Sebastian could appreciate a lemon’s intangible tang, which was why he ate ceviche on rare occasion.

 

_Patient six_ was having a good day, Sebastian could tell from the way that the young man walked, like dangling cherries. He tippy-toe-kissed Agni’s cheek goodbye, a light dismissal, though the gesture was clearly directed toward the room’s non-participant as an assertion of authority. All was well, Sebastian adored a good show, though it would have been less obscene if it weren’t for the much too large discrepancy in their sizes. 

 

The rest wasn’t worth mentioning, but their encounter left Agni feeling feathery enough to gently shut the door on his way out. It was forgotten moments later.

 

“Hello there,” Sebastian began warmly, tasting the roof of his mouth with his ado speckled tongue. He thought that the boy looked like a bird. 

 

Their handshake was firm from both ends.

 

“Doctor Michaelis.” 

 

Sebastian ghosted the palm of his hand over the prickles of electricity that bounced from the boy’s lower back and ushered them a charming path to the great sofa. It was plush and embracing, and the best part about it was that it faced Sebastian’s freakish armchair.

 

Once they were both comfortably seated, Sebastian refreshed the look on his face and sat his notebook atop the perch of his crossing knees before catching hold of his newest pen and titling a blank page:

 

_ Ciel Phantomhive _

 

Formalities weren’t necessary given Ciel’s circumstances, though Sebastian went through them anyway. Patient confidentiality, and legality, and payment, etcetera. Privacy was scarce nowadays, but at the very least, America’s private sector accommodated Ciel’s prestige handsomely. Sebastian’s toothy grin proved this much to be true.

 

“Well then, shall we begin?”

 

Ciel took that moment to perch his optyl patterned sunglasses atop his head. He said nothing.

 

From this distance, Sebastian could observe him clearly. Outside, the sun glanced its light over the shatters of his pupils mesmerically, but the thing that made them beautiful was not their overwhelming blue, it was the way that they differed in tinge ever so slightly. As if in everlasting competition, one pupil defied the other.

 

“Since our last email, you’ve left me quite curious. Is there a reason you refused to fill out my intake form? Surely you are well acquainted with the concept. It’s public knowledge that you’ve been to therapy before.”

 

Sebastian spoke quickly enough for the remark to zip through Ciel and abash the dismay on his cheeks with static.

 

“You are my therapist, not my tutor.”

 

_ Oh, he bites back, does he? _

 

Charmed, Sebastian merely nodded his tongue over the slime of his smile.

 

In high society, priority patients like Ciel were boundlessly important for the continued success of the firm. Abundant wealth, and status, and whatnot. Old money was old for a reason, which was why earning the clientele of Manhattan’s very own martyr boy:  _ The Last Phantomhive, _ was no small conquest. Sebastian wouldn’t ever feel outlandish enough to proclaim such pride, but the thought made him grip the edge of the pen tighter, anyways. 

 

And then, he was a little boy again, and Ciel’s gaze was a faraway shoreline; the blue thing bedewing the vast desert of distance between them. Although he felt parched, all Sebastian really wanted to do was build a castle out of wet sand.

 

“Ah, then you must mean that you only allow tutors to tell you what to do?”

 

Ciel didn’t miss a beat, actually giggled. “Precisely. But don’t feel too bad, Doctor.” The boy became intriguingly genuine:

 

“I wouldn’t ever pay a tutor to nurse my drivel.”

 

The inside of Sebastian’s bulletin mind connected the ridges of the boy’s response with a big, metaphorically red marker. 

 

_ I see little one. You want to feel wise. _

 

Sebastian showed no hit to his ego. His eyes remained curious and obnoxiously critical but void of any deflation. It even managed to refresh Ciel a little bit. 

 

“Actually,” Sebastian began. “I was going to say that you don’t seem like somebody who would accept direction from anyone at all.”

 

Ciel’s eyes crinkled in bemusement, his face wore a look that expressed just how much he enjoyed feeling smarter than his therapist. “If that really is so... then you’d know that I don’t take very well to goading either, Doctor.”

 

_ Of course I do patient six. You’re quite the little lord. _

 

“How would you like me to nurse your drivel?” Sebastian asked with his whole body, nudging at his spine to lean himself forward as an offering.

 

The boy seemed to eat the temptation right out of the palm of his hand. Settled his neck atop the perch of his shoulders and sunk further into the tousle of his blouse. It befell him in an uncomfortable comfort, like adjusting to the feeling of something scrounging in your stomach; a normal adjustment to new environments.

 

Sebastian brought the pen to paper and wrote about the many disguises of impending doom.

 

Though it might have been the afternoon sun making him look that way, Sebastian would never be sure. Sitting just like that, with that bulbous rock of sapphire pressed right against the seam of his pulpy throat, boy became bow. He looked at the pen as it wrote a quick note. 

 

“Tell me, Doctor, do you believe in free will?” Then he pointed straight at Sebastian and chuckled again. The moment was drying; Sebastian didn’t appreciate his patient’s knack for answering questions with more questions, in fact he found it to be a weak start. But for now, this early in session, he’d play along.

 

“It’s a little tricky, don’t you think? To so easily tell you what I’d like and how I’d like it. I chose to come here today because that’s what I want to want.” Here, because Ciel performed so exaggeratedly, Sebastian could tell that his patient was attempting to justify his need for therapy. 

 

“Why do you ask?” His mental eyebrows stuck up, like a predator enticed by its prey.

 

“I thought you might enjoy a challenge, Doctor. To see whether psychology determines philosophy,” the boy gestured to a spot on the bookshelf and twirled his wrist in a circle, obviously implying something.

 

_ Oh, you clever little thing. _

 

“I’ll admit that the concept of free will disappoints me. Should we rewind the last half hour and play it over a few times, the principles of nature tell us that our outcome will remain the same.”

 

“But I think,” Sebastian’s eyes slit themselves narrow, “that verity does not allure like chance.”  

 

Ciel wasn’t surprised to feel this aroused about topics of determinism, Sebastian had a certain sort of presence, one that melted away the righteous. His eyes remained remarkable despite the distracting boulder of jaw that leaped down his face. Offensively attractive, looked as if he wore wool because he liked sheep.

 

Ciel shrugged in German, desperately grabbing for an edge,  _ “Frei ist, wer in ketten tanzen kann.”(1)  _ Did Ciel not want to fall?

 

The spot inside of him that encased his pride  _ popped _ once he saw his Doctor’s jaw clench with obvious intrigue. Entertained, the pen returned to the paper, and imprudently, it became acceptable for Sebastian to take a second and write something down. Not that he was actually writing anything down, just pretending. But it was important to reward a patient with a moment to breathe in all of their curious insecurity.

 

Ciel looked around the room to make up for his empty nervousness by forcing his facial expression to call it appraisal instead. 

 

His mind wandered from shelf to window: did his Doctor think him too pestiferous? And back to the shelf again, because it really was taking that long. 

 

Not that it made their brief silence any less foreign for him.

 

“Your desk is lovely. Is it sturdy?” Ciel spoke trimley, confidence suddenly restored. Safe to say, patient six was having a good day.

 

“Plenty, yes.” Sebastian grinned politely through the middle of his notetaking. Inside, he huffed satisfactorily.

 

_ How generic of you, patient six. Is this how you exhaust the quiet? _

 

“Really? Strong enough to hold me?” 

 

The Doctor stopped, scribbles forgotten, and abruptly stood. His pelvis felt heavier with blood, a riveting sensation, but nothing scandalous enough to earn attention beside a constant and incescant clench of heat. He made good use of the moment by shifting the atmosphere toward the infamy of the desk in question. 

 

Sebastian walked, and it reminded Ciel that there was nothing quite like the sound of leathery footsteps against polished flooring. Its echo made him wriggle in his seat in an effort to squish the anticipation of the air within the warmth of his thighs. 

 

The man wasn’t overly supercilious in pace, though his nose remained far from the ground when he walked. Ciel liked it, the movement, whatever it was that his Doctor was attempting to do. Their eyes grabbed for the other despite the stirring of the room, both blown wide with unnamed mischief, like the pull of a metal chain: metaphorical clanking. 

 

There was already too much tension before Sebastian had found the audacity to palm his hand atop the desk and violently shake his arm against it to test its sturdiness. Ciel noted that the desk did not mind the roughness of Sebastian’s aggression. In fact, just like the boy sitting on the couch, it remained dead bolted to its spot. Not a moment after, in an effort to appease the feeling, Sebastian enclosed his authority over the knob of the closest drawer and opened it just to slam it shut once more. The commotion traveled around the room much differently than the leisurely padding of his patented oxfords. Instead, the racket lunged across the room like a blind-eyed viper to agog red all over the boy’s pudgy cheeks. 

 

Like dust, light twirled in through windows to make noise out of the empty space between them. From outside, the afternoon sky sang the clouds apart so that the sun could dance above the east side of Manhattan. Both were envious, thought Sebastian, of the way in which Ciel looked back at him. Rosy, and pesky, and callow. It was an instance unforgotten.

 

“It can hold me.” Sebastian stomped his eyebrow in an upward coup, referring to the recent strangeness that he had just arranged on his desk. If a Doctor’s assertion was anything to go by, that would be as far as they would go, but both Therapist and Patient knew:

 

“That wasn’t what I asked.”

 

Sebastian’s face took on a certain hue as the sun went down, and just then, Ciel could tell that he’d fallen prey to his Doctor’s trap because instead of feigning mannerful shock, he wore a devilish smile. Actually, it wasn’t much of a smile at all.

 

“The couch isn’t to your liking? You’re looking rather comfortable, but if you’d like,” Sebastian grazed the tabletop with his eyes, “you are more than welcome to sit here.”

 

Ciel thought about looking down at his Doctor from the perch of his big desk.

 

“The couch is fine,” he actually hiccuped. And then he did it again before scrunching away the chagrin from his shiny little nose. The Doctor was more than pleased, even took a moment to pour his noisy patient a glass of fizzy water, like it wasn’t already artless enough.

 

_ Very good. Be ashamed little one, it is great for the soul. _

 

“I’m impressed by your German, do you find enough time to study philosophical literature?”

 

“I do a lot of reading,” Ciel replied vaguely, still hiccuping. 

 

Sebastian grunted in approval because he liked readers, and asked his patient if he spent much time at home. He imagined the boy curled up with an afghan, entirely enslaved by whichever book captured his attention, probably naked and doughy.

 

Ciel thought about it for a moment but didn’t  _ really _ think about it since his Doctor was awfully great at staring, so instead, he told Sebastian that for the last six months, he’s stayed inside long enough to double the string of his house robe into a hairband. Immediately, he regretted saying it; it was oddly sentimental and not completely false either, something that Sebastian could tell was terribly irregular for the boy. He took it as a testament to his charm. 

 

Just to irritate the wound, Sebastian tied a noose around the silence of their necks and effectively suffocated the air. They both looked at the wall with a clock on it and Sebastian wrote something down again, something that soundlessly infuriated Ciel.

 

The clock, as its hand approached the beginning of their end, was both a sign of relief and regret. He wondered if his Doctor felt the same.

 

After, Sebastian completed their session in farewell.

 

_ “Der mensch kann tun was er will; er kann aber nicht wollen was er will.” (2) _

  
  
  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Translations n' credits:
> 
> (1)“Frei ist, wer in ketten tanzen kann.”  
> “Free is who can dance in chains.”  
> (Friedrich Nietzsche)
> 
> (2)“Der Mensch kann tun was er will; er kann aber nicht wollen was er will.”  
> “Man can do what he wills but he cannot will what he wills.”  
> (Arthur Schopenhauer, Essays and Aphorisms)
> 
> Yep! I'm about to ask you to come and talk to me on tumblr:[teasmudge.](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/teasmudge/) Let a homegirl know.
> 
> I know that you know, that I'm also about to ask you to leave a kudos. Please leave me one, they taste delicious.


End file.
